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poetic pictures —
artistic
descriptions, employed to produce a vivid effect and render certain
emotional and aesthetic impression.
Images may be:
realistic;
fantastic (surrealistic, fairy-tale);
dynamic (a blend of action and description).
Quoted below is an example of a
realistic poetic picture
without transfer of denominations:
By the road to the contagious hospital
under the surge of the blue
mottled clouds driven from the
north-east — a cold wind. Beyond, the
waste of broad, muddy fields
brown with dried weeds, standing and fallen
patches of standing water
the scattering of tall trees
All along the road the reddish,
purplish, forked, upstanding, twiggy
stuff of bushes and small trees
with dead, brown leaves under them
leafless vines —
Lifeless in appearance, sluggish dazed spring approaches —
They enter the new world naked, cold, uncertain of all
save that they enter…
[
Williams
]
The excerpt from the poem by W. C. Williams is a poetic
picture of the onset of spring. A series of homogeneous images —
clouds, fields, weeds, standing water, trees, bushes and small
trees, leaves — are explicated through binary genitive
combinations and a number of expressive epithets (
the surge of
the blue
mottled
clouds;
the waste of
broad, muddy fields;
patches
of
standing water;
the reddish, purplish, forked, upstanding,
twiggy stuff of
bushes and small trees). All these images are, in
fact, autologous
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, i.e. there is no transfer of denominations in
them from one object to another. The abstract metaphors ‘waste’,
‘stuff’, ‘patch’ are lexical, they have hardly any duplicity of
meanings, characteristic of original tropes. The one exception is
constituted by the lexical metaphor ‘the surge’
28
, which is felt as
metaphoric, or imaginative, notably, in the context ‘the surge of
the blue mottled clouds’.
Autologous as they are, these images, nevertheless, possess
great vividness and expression. Moreover, they become
generalized and abstract, because they stand as signs of the
approaching spring, and their meanings are broadened,
actualizing such semantic features as ‘disorder’, ‘abandonment’,
‘desolation’, ‘lifelessness’ and others. Negative evaluative
connotations are predominant here and dull colour spectrum is
emphasized. However, the connotations change their poles at the end
of the poem, not quoted above, when ‘one by one objects are
defined — / It quickens: clarity, outline of leaf’.
Special note should be taken of the personification ‘lifeless in
appearance, sluggish / dazed spring approaches / — They enter
the new world naked, / cold, uncertain of all / save that they
enter’, which produces the impression of inanimate things
gradually coming to life.
The poetic lines, which follow, represent a
surrealistic image
without transfer of denominations.
My eyes are doors
the moon walks through them
i have the moon in my head
it is white round luminous
as they say
it is heavy
27
Автология, согласно С. М. Мезенину [1984] – образ, выраженный
словами в их прямом, а не фигуральном значении.
28
волны; море
[
Michaelsson
]
On the face of it, there is an extended metaphor in this
passage, where the ‘moon’ represents something else. However,
on closer examination it becomes apparent that there is no
transfer of denominations here, as the moon means and represents
just itself and nothing else. Rather than metaphor this is a
surrealistic image, which exists in the dimension of ‘another
world’, the world of the author’s imagination.
Finally, let us consider an example of a
dynamic poetic
picture
where action and description are blended.
carrying a bunch of marigolds
wrapped in an old newspaper:
She carries them upright,
bareheaded,
the bulk
of her thighs
causing her to waddle
as she walks
looking into
the store window which she passes
on her way…
What is she
but an ambassador
from another world
a world of pretty marigolds…
holding the flowers upright
as a torch
so early in the morning.
[
Williams
]
The poetic picture here is narrative
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, or dynamic. Apart from
a description, it contains a certain action: a common Negro
woman carries a prodigy of beauty — a bunch of marigolds. The
image as a whole is not transferred, but the final lines actualize a
metaphoric quasi-identity and a simile to enhance the impact on
the reader (‘What is she but an ambassador from another world, a
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сюжетный
world of pretty marigolds’, ‘holding the flowers upright as a
torch’).
2.3. Tropes
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